


Settling In

by Walutahanga



Series: Arrangements [4]
Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2738201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trent settles into his new home, but not everything can be fixed overnight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settling In

**Author's Note:**

> I should warn that this story involves discussion of rape and torture. Not graphic, but Tommy's going to be asking very specific questions about what happened in Mesagog's labs.
> 
> Also, sometimes Trent's thoughts will contradict Power Ranger canon. This is because Trent doesn't know everything about his predecessors's history. Rangers don't always tell the public everything, or even other teams, so what Trent knows is based on what he's been told, which isn't necessarily correct or the whole truth.

Trent scared Dr O last night. 

He can tell by the bacon and eggs on the breakfast table the next morning; Dr O never lets the Rangers eat this kind of crap unless it’s a special occasion.

“We should talk about last night,” Dr O says as Trent picks up his fork. “Before Hayley gets here.”

Trent pauses with the fork in mid-air.

“Now?” He says warily.

“Eat first. We can talk after you’ve finished.”

Trent eats slowly, or as slowly as he can with the appetite of a Ranger driving him. He’s aware of Dr O watching him from across the table and it makes him nervous. In his experience, this kind of watchful silence never bodes well.

He wishes he hadn’t freaked out last night. But Dr O caught him when he was still half-asleep and on the tail-end of another nightmare. In hindsight, it’s a good thing Dr O handled it like he did; the last time Elsa got too close waking Trent up (her boot had cracked two ribs) he’d put a knife through her thigh.

Dr O waits until Trent has scraped the last bit of egg from the plate and set his knife and fork neatly in the centre to signify he’s done.

“Last night,” Dr O says carefully. “That was a bad dream you were having?”

“I guess.” Trent shrugs. He’s found that half-answers are safest; you can deny having outright lied, while still holding back the important parts.

“What was it about?”

“Mesagog.” Trent doesn’t bother to hide the shortness of his tone; if Dr O presses him for details, he can whistle for them.

“Just Mesagog?”

“Esla and Zeltrax might have been there too.”

“I mean, it wasn’t about anything else? Outside the labs?”

Trent stares at Dr O, trying to read his expression, to work out what the right answer is, but Dr O’s calm gives him no clues.

“Should it have been?” He says.

“Not all monsters look like monsters. Sometimes they can be human.” While Trent is still trying to figure out what he’s getting at, Dr O says with labourous care: “Trent, if something was happening at home, something you weren’t comfortable with, even if you thought you deserved it…”

“What?” For the first time since yesterday, Trent feels a genuine smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “No. God, no. You’ve got completely the wrong idea. Dad would never lay a finger on me.”

Dr O’s relief is clear to read, and Trent wants to laugh at how ridiculously off-track his teacher had gotten. Dad and Mesagog might share a body, but Dad had never been the one to hurt him. Sure emotions sometimes transferred across like Mesagog being somewhat lenient when Dad was pleased about a good grade… or being extra pissed off when Dad was irritated about Trent not cleaning his room properly…

Trent’s amusement dies and he slams that line of thought closed. He won’t blame his Dad for anything Mesagog did. Dad can’t help how Mesagog chooses to act on the feelings that cross the barrier. You might as well blame him for his lungs absorbing oxygen when he inhaled.

“I had to ask,” Dr O says. Trent hopes that this interrogation is over, but then Dr O adds: “We’ve never really talked about what happened in Mesagog’s labs, have we.”

For the record, Trent hates statements that are phrased as questions. _You want to eat your broccoli, don’t you. You want to get into a good college, don’t you. You want to kill the Rangers and keep Mesagog happy, don’t you…_

“No,” he says neutrally. “We haven’t.”

“We don’t need to talk about it now.” Dr O proves himself a liar by adding a second later: “I just need to ask some questions. You don’t need to give me any details. A yes or no will do. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Were you beaten?”

Trent considers the question and decides it's a fairly safe one to answer. He'd already casually mentioned his initiation to the Rangers weeks ago. He'd softened up the story a lot, making it sound like Zeltrax had just smacked him round a little, but it's not as if the Rangers are unaware he'd taken plenty of hits from his own side. 

“Only when Zeltrax could catch me unmorphed,” he says with a smirk. "And to be fair, I gave as good as I got." Even Zeltrax slept on occasion, and Trent had taken remorseless advantage of those lulls in the cyborg's awareness.

Dr O doesn't return his smile. 

"Just beaten?' 

Trent quirks an brow, in the same way that used to infuriate Zeltrax beyond all reason. 

"You're going to have to be more specific than that, Dr O." 

“Were you raped?”

It’s a question Trent wasn’t expecting. For a second he thinks of the awful sounds Elsa would make when Mesagog was ‘disciplining’ her. Trent would always get as far away as he could on those nights and bloody his knuckles on a tryannodrone, so damn angry because he was evil, he wasn’t mean to _care_ –

“No,” he says shortly. “I wasn’t.”

If Dr O notices the faint emphasis on the pronoun, he doesn’t pursue it. 

"That doesn't necessarily mean only penetrative sex," he says mildly. "Anything that you didn't consent to, even a kiss." 

"No one touched me like that," Trent bites out, mind still on Elsa's bruises the day after. He had never been able to work out what she was, or how much agency she really had. "Are you done, or do you have any other questions?" 

“Were you tortured?”

Trent’s not sure how, but his fingers are suddenly clenched around the handle of his knife. The cool metal is solid, reassuring. He used to carry one everywhere in the labs, accumulating them from kitchens and cafeterias. He’d hide them under his clothes or in his room, comforted by the body-warm metal against his skin. He feels naked without one.

“Things happened,” he says out loud. “I don’t know that you’d call them torture.” He sees the question forming on Dr O’s face and adds, a little sharper than he intended: “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Dr O says immediately, reassuringly. “Okay. You don't have to." 

Trent knows better than to believe him. 

* * *

Trent calls his dad after breakfast is done and the dishes are in the washer. Part of him is hoping irrationally that the change in arrangements will make Anton re-consider the whole talking-to-him issue.

The phone goes straight to voicemail.

“Hey, Dad. It’s me. I’m at Dr O’s. Just so you know.” He pauses, not sure what he wants to say. “It’d be nice if we could talk sometime.”

He hangs up, feeling unsatisfied and frustrated. And trapped, with Dr O in the house, those unasked questions hanging over their heads.

When Trent goes back downstairs, Dr O has some blasters on the kitchen table and is performing some maintenance.

“Shouldn’t you be doing that in the Lair?” Trent asks thoughtlessly before remembering this was Dr O’s house and he could do as he damn well pleased. But Dr O smiles.

“I won’t tell Hayley if you won’t.” He picks up another tool. “Any plans for today?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

Not between getting found out, packed up and dragged here by Dr O. He’s still trying to get his head around his time being answerable to someone else again. He’d just gotten used to making his own decisions. 

“I know Kira has band practice,” Dr O says. “But the other two are going to see a movie. You should let them know you’re free.”

Trent makes a non-committal sound. That’s Dr O thinking like a Ranger who’s never tried to kill his own team. Trent would rather remain on the outskirts than force himself somewhere he’s not wanted. At least he’ll have his pride.

“I don’t know if I want to see a movie. Maybe I’ll just go for a walk –”

His phone rings.

“Hello?” He answers cautiously.

“Dude, check your phone!” Conner’s voice blares in his ear. “I sent you like twenty texts yesterday.”

“I was kind of busy yesterday.”

“Whatever. Look, meet me and Ethan at Cyberspace. We’re going to see that movie he’s been whinging about all week.” There’s a sound in the background which sounds a lot like someone’s fist connecting with someone’s shoulder. “Ow! Not cool, Ethan!”

Trent looks across at Dr O who’s pretending like he’s not listening. He’s almost as good at it as Elsa, who could seem utterly focused on her experiments then suddenly throw a knife so hard it buried into the wall five inches from where Trent was skulking.

“Conner wants to go see a movie,” Trent says, and Dr O nods, managing to not to look even the slightest bit smug at being right.

“Need any money?”

“No, I’ve got enough.” Now that he won’t be spending it on basic necessities like food, he’ll actually have plenty.

“Who’s that?” Conner says on the phone. “Are you back with your Dad again?”

He doesn’t sound too happy at the prospect. Conner doesn’t like Anton; none of the younger Rangers do. Trent can’t really blame them.

It had taken Kira all of three days to work out that Trent wasn’t living at home, and from there only ten minutes for her to share it with Conner and Ethan. When Trent couldn’t give them a good reason – or what they considered a good reason– they’d come up with their own theories. He’d had to beg them not to tell Dr O or Hayley, and they’d been determined to dob him in right up until he pretended to cry. Which had been _pretending_. He’d squeezed out a few tears to give it some verisimilitude, that was all. So what if his face went a little red and blotchy and it got hard to breathe for a while. He was a good actor, okay.

The others were the ones who’d completely freaked, shoving him into an armchair and piling him tissues and blankets and promising not to tell so long as he “stopped making that face”.

Half-smothered under too many blankets and holding a cup of tea he definitely hadn’t asked for, he’d come to a startling revelation; he had _power_ over the other Rangers. And not just a little. His wellbeing – emotional or otherwise – was important enough to them that a relatively minor deviation could sway them to act completely against their better judgement. Back in the labs, he’d had to manipulate and blackmail and backstab just to get the slightest bit of respect, but the Rangers would willingly give him whatever he wanted over a few tears.

The sudden sense of power was dizzying. And nauseating. Manipulating Elsa and Zeltrax had been hard. Manipulating the Rangers would be easy.

It had horrified him. What kind of person had Mesagog turned him into, that it was the first thing he’d think of? He’d made a fierce promise to himself then and there that he would never, ever play any of those games here. Maybe he wouldn’t tell them about his dad, but he wouldn’t use this vulnerability against them ever again.  Just this once already made him feel like a shitty human being.

“Trent?” Conner said. “Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard you. I’m not at my Dad’s. I’m at Dr O’s.”

Conner takes a second to parse that.

“Wait, so he worked it out?”

“Kinda.”

“Toldja he would.” Conner doesn’t wait for a rebuttal, adding: “Don’t worry about Cyberspace. We’ll come pick you up, say half an hour.”

When Trent hangs up, Dr O is polishing a metallic piece, a thoughtful look on his face.

“Did the others know that you weren’t living at home?”

Trent rolls his eyes.

“If they had, don’t you think they would have told you.” His deflection is as matter of fact as any of his flippant lies to Zeltrax, but for some reason it doesn’t work on Dr O.

“So they did know.” He doesn’t sound happy.

“I just told you that they didn’t.” Trent injects an injured tone into his voice. “It’s going to be really hard to settle in around here if you keep thinking everything I say is a lie.”

Tommy gives him a look that’s somewhere between amused and annoyed. Trent allows the smallest of smirks to curl the corner of his mouth, before plastering the wounded look on his face again.

“I never behaved like this to Zordon,” Tommy mutters half to himself. “Alright, Trent I believe you. But _hypothetically_ my team ever hid something like this from me, _hypothetically_ I wouldn’t overlook it a second time.”

“I’ll pass that on,” Trent promises gravely. 

* * *

Conner's car pulls into the driveway half an hour later and Conner honks on the horn until Trent comes out. 

"Have fun," Dr O calls out as the screen door swings shut behind Trent.

Trent makes some vague affirmative answer, but he's ridiculously glad to be out of the house and getting into the backseat of the car. Ethan's in the front passenger seat, already twisting round to look at him. 

"So how angry was Dr O?" He asks. "On a scale of one to Zeltrax?" 

"He wasn't angry," Trent says truthfully. "More disappointed." 

Ethan winces.

"Yeah, it sucks when he does that. Still better than him being angry." 

"Has he ever really gotten angry?" Honestly, Trent hasn't ever seen Dr O angry. Annoyed yes. Angry, no. Then again, he hasn't been on the team long.

"A few times. Mostly when one of us does something stupid." 

"Like what?" 

"Like when Conner chased a monster into a lake, even though he can't swim, and the monster was specifically designed to fight in water." 

"Hey," Conner says indignantly. "I had it under control." 

"Which was why Kira had to perform CPR afterwards." 

"You needed CPR?" Trent breaks in, stomach lurching at the thought that of Conner so close to dying, and he'd never known. 

"Only a little. I was fine." Conner adds: "But Dr O was spitting chips. Total overreaction." 

"Man, that's three months ago and I still kind of want to belt you for it," Ethan says. 

"How about you? Mr 'Lets try and hack into the invisi-portal network and not tell anybody so no one knows to come rescue me when I inevitably get sucked in'." 

"Wait, that was you?" Trent says. "The invisi-portal network was messed up for days - Mesagog had Elsa on no sleep until it she got it working again." He precludes mentioning how Mesagog had taken out his frustration on him and Zeltrax; no need to make Ethan feel guilty for something he couldn't have predicted would happen. 

"Yeah." Ethan rubs the back of his neck; a tick when he's nervous or embarrassed. "I sort of had this idea that if we could get in, we could come steal you." 

"You wanted to rescue me?" 

"Kidnap, technically. Kira was all for doing it at school, but we couldn't figure out how to get past Randall, and your Dad has all those insane security measures on his house." 

"How were you planning on making me stop being evil?" 

"It was a work in progress," Ethan says with dignity and Trent is weirdly touched that his teammate had done something so patently stupid to try and help him at a time when he least wanted it. 

He touches Ethan's shoulder, in a way that he's seen the other Rangers do, when they want to show affection. 

"Thanks." 

Ethan glances from Trent's hand to his face, and he looks absurdly pleased, though he tries to hide it. 

"Yeah, well. Next time I'm just going to contact Ninja Storm. They seem like people who know how to do a kidnapping right." 

* * *

The movie is some sci-fi flick. The storyline makes no sense, but the effects are decent. Trent finds he's apparently ruined for action scenes, because all his subconscious does is generate more effective solutions. Conner and Ethan get fidgety as well, and after one particularly frustrating scene Conner whispers: 

"He had at least three combat knives left and that guy gave him a completely obvious opening". 

"Plus the two-by-four," Ethan whispers. "I saw at least two pieces he could have picked up. What was he doing? Trying to get himself killed?" 

"Pretty pointless heroic sacrifice if it was," Trent finds himself contributing. "His death served a brief strategic advantage, but didn't buy them near enough time to justify the loss of their long range fighting abilities." 

He stops, horrified by what had just come out of his mouth, but Ethan and Conner nod like what he'd said made perfect sense. 

"They're going to be so screwed without their sniper," Conner agrees. "How are they planning on holding the field when they get to the top of the tower?" 

It's pretty fun, actually, debating all the ways that it could have gone better, even with several people shushing them. The only thing missing is Kira and Trent wishes she didn't have band practice today. 

Then comes the scene when the hero is inevitably captured and being questioned by the villain. He’s strapped to a table, and Trent knows it's pretend - he  _knows_. It's just actors and scenery and guys behind a camera, but suddenly all he can think of is being in the chair while Mesagog loomed over him.

He hadn't been in the chair often; just enough to learn an overwhelming dread of it. The chair meant Mesagog was pissed off enough to take his time, or worse;  _curious_. While he was unwilling to do anything that might permanently damage his best fighter, he had no problems with lesser experiments to try and understand how Rangers worked. 

"Trent?" Ethan whispers, fingertips grazing the back of Trent's wrist. "You okay?" 

"Fine," Trent lies. "Just watching the movie." 

Onscreen the villain has started his speech to reveal the mysterious connection between him and the hero, and it's a real effort for Trent to keep his expression calm and focused, like he's not seeing anything unusual except a cheesy movie. He's painfully aware of Ethan and Conner shooting him worried looks. He's starting to realize, between Dr O and the rangers, how utterly transparent teammates are to each other. How futile it might well be to keep attempt to keep any secrets from them. 

He waits until the scene has passed and they're at the ridiculous break out bit before whispering to Ethan: 

"I'm going to the bathroom." 

He squeezes out past people's legs and makes his way to the cinema bathrooms, which are blessedly empty. He locks himself inside a stall and sits on the toilet seat. 

_You're fine,_  he tells himself, staring blindly at the graffiti on the back of the stall door. _It was just a stupid movie._   _Stop freaking out._   _You've seen a lot worse in person and didn't blink an eyelid._  Though in all fairness to his evil self, he'd had an evil gem to fall back on. 

When he's done freaking out, he comes out and is startled by Conner waiting by the hand basins. 

"Were you there all that time?" 

"Only since the movie finished." 

"The movie finished?" 

"Like ten minutes ago." Conner rocks back on his heels, considering Trent with that analytical gaze that he and Dr O have in common. Come to think of it, Shane had that look as well. He'd looked the Dino Thunder team up and down like he was evaluating them, considering their strengths and weaknesses and possible applications. At least Conner doesn't ask any stupid questions like 'are you okay'. He just says: "Do you want to get something to eat, or do you want to go home?" 

Trent weighs his options: hang out some more with Conner and Ethan, or go home to Dr O's inevitable questions. 

"Something to eat." 

* * *

By the time they get to Cyberspace Kira's finished her band practice and is waiting for them. She bitches about the new drummer, who didn’t bother to learn the new song before coming to rehearsal. They're all crammed into a booth sharing a bowl of chips and Kira's thigh is pressed against Trent's, her elbow touching his. Usually he doesn't like being touched, but he decides he doesn't mind it today. 

"Oh, did you hear, Kira?" Conner says. "Trent's staying with Dr O now." 

Kira turns her attention to Trent. 

"So did he finally figure it out," she says, not sounding surprised. "Or did you come clean?" 

"Neither." Trent resists the urge to squirm. "My Dad kind of told him." 

"Huh." She sounds thoughtful and adds: "That was decent of him." Somehow she manages to imply that this basic level of decency from Anton is both shocking and unprecedented. 

"Dad's a good man," he says. 

"Right." 

"He is. He just - is having a hard time at the moment." He shouldn't be talking about his Dad with them. They're too perceptive where he's concerned. "Anyway, I'm living with Dr O now. Just until Dad gets better." 

The others don't say anything and he can tell from their expressions that they're humoring him. Funny how he might be transparent to them, but they're equally transparent to him. 

* * *

When Conner drops Trent off that evening, he gets out of the car with him. 

"Are you coming inside?" Trent asks. 

"No." Conner is giving him that same careful scrutiny. "Look, I want to do something. Don't freak, okay." 

It's a good thing that he warned Trent, because otherwise Trent would have backed right up when Conner steps deliberately into his personal space. It’s a shock to feel Conner’s long arms wrap and exert just enough pressure to make him lean into the embrace. 

"You looked like you could use a hug," Conner says in his ear, and Trent laughs a little. He can't remember the last time someone hugged him just because. Anton was a good man, but Trent had come to him as a teenager, and hugging was just something they'd never really got comfortable doing. He'd never had a real girlfriend, and he'd left all his close friends behind when they moved. "Are you freaking out?" Conner says. "You sound like you're freaking out." 

He starts to let go, and Trent abruptly remembers you're meant to reciprocate with hugs. He hurriedly wraps his own arms about Conner's ribs.  

"If I'm not stabbing you in the side, I'm not freaking out." 

Conner relaxes, muttering: 

"You're not the most relaxing teammate to have." 

"I don't think any of us could be considered relaxing." 

"True." 

The warm fuzzy glow from the hug lasts the rest of the evening. Hayley’s over for dinner, which is kind of a relief because it means he’s not the undivided focus of Dr O’s attention.

* * *

He wakes up from a nightmare of Zeltrax, drenched in sweat. Sound is ringing in his ears like he'd woken himself up shouting. 

Dr O is standing in the doorway, wearing tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, like he'd come straight from his bedroom. 

"Are you awake?" He says, just like he'd asked last night. 

"Yes." Trent tries to calm his racing heart, tries to banish the images still burned into his mind. 

"Another nightmare?" 

Trent nods. At least there was no lamp to knock over this time. Dr O had said they'd go into town and get a new one, but he hadn't had time yesterday. 

"Mesagog?" 

"Zeltrax." Trent suddenly remembers, too late, that Zeltrax was once Dr O's friend, that Dr O still feels a sense of responsibility for him, the same way the rangers had felt responsibility for Trent. "It wasn't so bad."

He's telling the truth for once; Zeltrax had been remarkably straightforward in his goals and resentments. While you could never predict when Elsa was going to slide the knife in, or whether Mesagog was going to praise you or make you scream, you could always predict Zeltrax.

Dr O doesn't seem reassured.  

"I keep hoping there's a way to save him," he says quietly. "And I keep being disappointed." Though he's looking at Trent when he says it, Trent isn't sure that he's meant to answer. 

"You can't give up on him," he says, chilled at the idea that Dr O would give up just like that. "He's your friend." 

"There's a line, Trent. You'll learn that, if you continue with this career. There'll be times to hang on as hard as you can, and times to let go." He looks as if he's about to say more, but doesn't. "Don't worry about it," he says. "I'll make that call when the time comes. That won't be for your kids to decide." 

_Is that the only thing you'll make the call on?_  Trent thinks, feeling cold. He has a sudden clear certainty that if he were to tell Dr O about his Dad, Dr O wouldn't try to save him. He'd see a clear path to cut the snake off at the head and take it. 

And he might not be wrong to do it. 

For the first time, Trent looks – really looks – at the possibility that Anton’s death might be the best solution. It would save a lot of lives in the long run. Trent wouldn't even have to do anything. Dr O would make sure that he didn't have to see it. He'd probably take Trent’s morpher and lock him up somewhere so that he couldn't interfere, couldn't have even the slightest shred of responsibility hanging on his conscience. Trent would be able to scream and hate and grieve, safe in the knowledge that there was nothing he could have done to save his father.  

Except keep his mouth shut.

"Do you want to go back to sleep?" Dr O asks. 

"No." Trent's awake now, all the leftover adrenaline making him restless. 

"I'm not going to get any sleep either. Lets get a cup of tea." 

Dr O makes them some chamomile in the kitchen. Hayley's asleep upstairs so they tip-toe down to the basement where their noise won't disturb her, and Dr O shows Trent the video archives of former teams. They end up watching old footage from the Astro Ranger battles, with Dr O pointing out strategies or telling interesting little anecdotes that didn't make it into the news.

"...Adam taught Carlos that move; it's a nasty one... see how Cassie falls back primarily on ninjitsu when she’s under pressure? ….it's not well known, but Andros' sister was a prisoner of Astronema at this time, and they weren't able to rescue her until the final battle..." 

It must have been so straightforward back then, Trent thinks. Fight evil, save earth, rescue your family. No muddy grey lines to wade through. He wonders what Andros would have made of his dilemnia and concludes despondently that the Red Astro Ranger would despise him for being so weak.

A true Ranger would have done the right thing. Trent's not even sure what the right thing is. 


End file.
